The IVF Fertility Blog

For older women and women with a diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) time can be the greatest factor in the ability to become pregnant and have a healthy baby. Embryo banking and staggered IVF provides a way for women to take full advantage of viable eggs while they can.

Traditional IVF Treatment

In traditional IVF treatment, a woman is prescribed fertility medication in order to produce eggs for harvesting. While medication does increase the number of eggs produced during a cycle, it is common for many of the harvested eggs to be of a low quality and not be suitable for fertilization. The low quality eggs are discarded and the remaining eggs are fertilized in an attempt to get a healthy embryo. The resulting embryos are then used in an IVF transfer. Should the cycle fail, the entire process is repeated.

Staggered IVF Approach

Older women and women with DOR have eggs that are more likely to have genetic defects. The number of eggs with defects increases as time goes on. Eggs with defects make poor quality embryos and are often the cause of miscarriage. Because of this, traditional IVF is often not the best approach. Staggered IVF uses multiple egg harvesting cycles one after another. The healthy, viable embryos that arise from these cycles are banked and are frozen via vitrification. This process of flash freezing ensures the embryos are not harmed by ice crystals during the freezing and thawing process. Once a number of embryos are banked, IVF can be done via frozen embryo transfer.

Staggered IVF takes advantage of the time when a woman is most likely to produce healthy eggs. When combined with genetic testing, couples maximize their likelihood of becoming pregnant and having a healthy baby.

To find out how staggered IVF and embryo banking may be used as a part of your personalized fertility treatment plan, contact the experts at New Hope Fertility Center today. Please click the link below to enter your information and New Hope will contact you, or simply call 212-517-7676. Thank you.